OECD Green Growth

Strategy

Nathalie Girouard
Green Growth Coordinator

Expert Group Greening the European Semester,

18 September 2014, Brussels
 The OECD Green Growth Strategy

Green Growth is an opportunity

Our work starts with the premise is that there is no necessary conflict
between pursuing economic growth and doing so in a green way. We
need growth and it needs to be green.

Green Growth gives rise to new challenges

“Green growth implies massive structural changes across the economy;
it will be all-encompassing. It requires all hands on deck.” Simon
Upton, Environment Director, OECD

Green Growth is multidisciplinary

 29 OECD Committees
 Delegates from Ministries of Finance, Economy, Environment,
Agriculture, Trade, Development Co-operation, Industry…
 Green Growth Strategy milestones
2009
 Declaration on Green Growth

2011
 Flagship Report: Towards Green
Growth
 Toolkit: Tools for Delivering on
Green Growth
 Indicators: Towards Green
Growth: Measuring Progress –
OECD Indicators

2015
 Synthesis Report:
Mainstreaming, Policy Advice
and Monitoring
Mainstreaming in
practice
 Green growth governance at OECD

Council

EPOCELS, Steering
Chairs
DAF LEED Group
DCD/DAC GOV
STI
Program Committees
of Work CSTAT ECO
TAD Topics
& Budget CTPA …
Friends
of Green GG SD
Growth Forum
Mainstreaming
Green Growth
into PWB
Green Growth Unit
Core
Group
 Green Growth Indicators: Moving from purely
economic reviews to integrated GG Assessment
Group Theme Proposed headline indicator

Carbon productivity 1. CO2 productivity

Environmental
and resource Resource productivity 2. Non-energy material productivity
productivity
3. Multifactor productivity incl.
Multifactor productivity
environmental services
Renewable and non-
renewable stocks 4. Index of natural resource use
The natural asset
base Biodiversity and
ecosystems 5. Changes in land use and cover

Environmental Environmental health 6. Air pollution (population exposure to

quality of life and risks PM 2.5)
Economic Tech. and innovation,
opportunities and EGS, jobs, prices, + 1 placeholder: For countries to choose
• “Green” is difficult to isolate; Cross-country variation in policies
policy responses taxes, transfers, …

Source: Green Growth Indicators 2014

 OECD Country Reviews – National Policy Surveillance

Economic Environmental Investment Review of

Survey Performance Review Innovation
Review Policy
Issues per ~ 20 ~4 ~4 2-4
year
Cycle 2 years 7 years, midterms N/A N/A
Total 48 38 42 20
countries
covered
First year 1961 1993 1993 2007
Directorate ECO ENV DAF STI

 4 core Directorates involved

 Aim: systematically assess GG policy using the indicators
 Move towards benchmarking across countries and tracking across
time
 From Mainstreaming to Policy Advice

Mainstreaming green growth and monitoring progress

 Green growth strategy
 Green growth indicators
 Country policy surveillance

Economic policies to foster green growth

 Investment and finance
 Taxation and regulation
 Reform of fossil fuel support measures
 Trade
 Innovation
 Climate change adaptation
 International agreements
 Policy coordination (e.g. labour market)
 Snapshot of Green Growth Policies

Make pollution more costly than green

alternatives
 Environmental taxes, emissions trading schemes

Value and price natural assets and ecosystem

services
 Water pricing, payments for ecosystem services, natural
park charges

Eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies

 Subsidies to fossil fuels, irrigation water

Effective policy design to transition underlying policy

systems as well as key sectors
 Green innovation, green investment and finance, trade
policy
 Sectors and socio-economic contexts matter

Green growth at sectoral level

 Energy
 Transport
 Agriculture
 Water
 Biodiversity and ecosystems
 Waste

Socio-economic aspects of green growth

 Development
 Distributional impacts (households, skills)
 Behavioural economics
 Education and training
 Energy poverty

Greening cities, regions and communities

 The OECD Green
Growth and Sustainable
Development Forum
 Green Growth and Sustainable
Development Forum
 OECD initiative: a dedicated space for multi-disciplinary
dialogue

 Interactive platform: brings together experts from different

policy fields and disciplines; facilitates discussion

 Valuable supplement: for the work undertaken in individual

government departments and ministries

 Meeting point: for policy makers, academics and experts to

exchange experiences, policy tools and best practices
 2014 GGSD Forum: Addressing social
implications of green growth
 Going for inclusive green growth in an increasingly
unequal world
 Current trends in inequality and implications for green
growth policy

 Energy sector reform and its impact on households

 Social impacts of green growth policies based on experience
with the energy sector to date

 Inclusive labour markets for green growth

 Labour market challenges associated with green growth
 Labour market and environmental policy

Labour market
policy

Environmental Structural Distributional Inclusive green

policy change effects growth

Quality of life
 Moving forward
–
The 2015 Green
Growth Synthesis
Report
 Green Growth is global and all-encompassing

Green growth papers

Environmental Performance Reviews

Monitoring GG in LAC region

Toward GG in Southeast Asia African Economic Outlook

Investment Policy Reviews with GG chapter GG in the EECCA region

Economic Surveys + GG in cities …

 Rationale for the Report

 Build momentum: Further mainstreaming GG in

OECD publications and committees (economics,
environment, statistics, innovation)

 Synergies / black holes: Carrying out a systematic

review of OECD country reports and their coverage of
indicators, topics and policies related to GG to identify
priorities for future work

 Mainstream use of GG indicators: Long-term goal

to move to an integrated policy review and establish
Green Growth as a metric for policy success
 The aim of the 2015 Synthesis Report

 Overview:
 What topics are covered by OECD country reviews?
 Are GG Indicators used systematically?
 Is there a follow-up on policy recommendations?

 Country progress: Present overarching challenges

and case studies in Green Growth policy
implementation

 Surveillance / monitoring: Explain the need and

develop ideas for benchmarking GG policies across
countries and tracking them across time
 Preliminary Findings

 No systematic use of GG Indicators

 Problem of long cycles for tracking

 Too much focus on first-best solutions that are

politically not feasible

 Too often only energy sector analysis

 Poor coverage of innovation policies

 Next steps, way forward

 Focus on how to accelerate and intensify

mainstreaming process
 More systematic consideration of green growth
indicators in core policy advice?
 More systematic follow-up of environmental
performance in economic reviews?
 Tracking of cross-country lessons from reviews to
assist benchmarking?
 Aim: more targeted support to government in
implementing and tracking green growth
 THANK YOU!

Contact us and follow up on our work

www.oecd.org/greengrowth
Nathalie.girouard@oecd.org